The following patents disclose apparatus used for closing a flexible bag by attaching and twisting a wire-like ribbon about the neck of a flexible bag: U.S. Pat. No. 3,138,904 issued Jun. 30, 1964 to Earl E. Burford entitled “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR TYING PACKAGES AND WRAPPING MATERIALS; U.S. Pat. No. 3,059,670 issued Oct. 23, 1962 to Charles E. Burford and Leonard W. Burford entitled “WIRE TWISTING TOOL; U.S. Pat. No. 3,919,829 issued Nov. 18, 1975 to Leonard W. Burford and Charles C. Burford entitled “APPARATUS FOR TYING PACKAGES AND WRAPPING MATERIALS;” U.S. Pat. No. 4,856,258 issued Aug. 15, 1989 to Charles E. Burford and Jimmy R. Frazier entitled “WIRE TYING DEVICE;” U.S. Pat. No. 5,483,134 issued Jan. 9, 1996 to Jimmy R. Frazier, John D. Richardson, and Greg P. Coxsey entitled “RIBBON SENSING DEVICE FOR BAG TYER”; U.S. Pat. No. 5,692,358 issued Dec. 2, 1997 to Jimmy R. Frazier, John D. Richardson, and Greg P. Coxsey entitled “BAG NECK TYING DEVICE;” U.S. Pat. No. 5,826,629 issued Oct. 27, 1998 to Joe E. West entitled “WIRE TYING APPARATUS;” and U.S. Pat. No. 5,708,339 issued Jan. 13, 1998 to Jimmy R. Frazier, John D. Richardson, and Greg P. Coxsey entitled “BAG NECK GATHERING STOP.” These U.S. patents are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety for all purposes. If there is any conflict between a reference incorporated by reference and the present disclosure, the present disclosure will control.
Bag tying apparatuses of the type disclosed in the aforementioned patents are commercially available from Burford Corporation of Maysville, Okla. They are constructed to receive packages of product, such as loaves of bread, at speeds of, for example, 100 packages per minute. The design of such bag tying apparatus requires careful consideration of the mass, acceleration, deceleration, and momentum of the moving parts. Further, precise synchronization of parts in assemblies of the apparatus must be maintained throughout repeated tying cycles for the apparatus to operate effectively.
The apparatus hereinafter described offers improvements over the apparatuses described in the above-mentioned patents, for example, to increase the tying rate or to provide apparatuses that require less maintenance.